For correction of printing colors of a printing apparatus such as a color printer, firstly, print data is inputted to a printing apparatus which is a correction object, to cause the apparatus to print a plurality of color samples. Then, spectral characteristics of the many printed color samples having different color tones and densities are measured. Printing colors of the printing apparatus are corrected based on a difference between a measured value of the spectral characteristics of each color sample and a reference value of the spectral characteristics which is an intended value each color sample should have.
However, often a huge number of color samples have to be measured, and it is troublesome and takes much time to measure colors of the samples by an ordinary colorimeter of manual operation type.
In a conventional technique, a scanning type color measurement system has been practically used, in which a color measurement apparatus scans a two-dimensional array of samples in a row direction of the array while a paper is transported in a column direction of the array, so that each sample in the array is automatically measured (for example, see Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: Specification of U.S. Pat. No. 6,732,917